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Re: [at-l] Bears in the Smokies

At 01:26 PM 6/21/97 PDT, Gail B. Johnson wrote:
>One of my good friends is a horse camper and she recently stayed in the
>horse campground in Cataloochee.  She was telling me how the bears were
>"out of control" there.  Two women were sleeping in the bed of their
>truck and two bears got on the front and were rocking the truck back and
>forth.  A cub tried to crawl in a horse trailer to get the sweet feed and
>the mother swiped it out.  In the process she put a big gash in the hind
>end of the horse.  The horse freaked out.  She said that they practically
>came up to the campfires (I asked her if she offered them any
>marshmellows).  Some man was riding his horse too hard and it locked up
>(don't ask me to explain that).  He left the horse there and came out. 
>When a ranger found the horse it was dead and three bears were feeding on
>it.  The rangers were able to track the man down and made him liable for
>any damages to horses or their riders (in that area) for four years (I'm
>not certain how this could be enforced).   

I just came back from 8 days of car camping (with the family) in the GSMNP.
 We stayed five days at Cataloochee, and three days at Balsam Mountain.
There were no big bear problems at either campground, although there had
been problems at Balsam Mountain the year before.

We did see three bears at Cataloochee (a mom and two cubs, browsing near
the trees across a field from us).  We also saw one bear in the woods on
the Little Cataloochee trail.

-- Jim Mayer

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